On the world stage, they are very sensitive to criticism and public image in general, but don't care about what individual sinners and apostates do or say....but sometimes they can only try not to care.

They have to know their all too human imperfections. They have to know how relatively powerless they are on the religious stage, in terms of 'miracles, which is a staple of a divine connectio. They have to know that the only power they have is what the membership gives to them, along with the power lots and lots of money gives to any modern human.

Prophets are prophets because they prophecy, not because a general conference sustains them as such. Mormonism's prophets have been woeful underperformers...from the gitgo.

The members who get it will leave. They are gone so they won't have to worry about them. The members who don't believe it will never get it. You can expose everything about the brethren and the most indoctrinated sheeple will just stick their heads in the sand and forget it. The brethren can just play the martyr roll cause they've got that act down cold.

Besides, they've raked in the $$$. Their kids got free education at BYU. They have at least two homes and very well padded pension funds. They can't possibly care very much even if the church collapses around them. They've got their golden parachutes. And the for profit arm of the church will still need their business experience so they can keep their board of directors positions. No worries there mate.

1. None of them produce any prophetic claims about the real world that ever come to pass - no earthquakes, wars, or floods.

2. None of them offer any insight in to the nature of the world, no stunning philosophical claims or truths that help us comprehend the world we live in.

3. There is ZERO evidence any of them have actually healed anyone bar the one that was a heart surgeon - but certainly none related to the priesthood.

4. They can't speak in tongues - nope, they need translators to assist where they've not taken formal classes in a foreign language.

6. They won't go anywhere near public debate. They may put out a statement after the fact but they'd never in a million years debate Hitch when he was alive or Sam Harris, or Richard Dawkins. Never. We know why, because they'd get turned inside out and be revealed as empty shrills.

7. They won't even take genuine questions from doubters in the congregation - they steer clear of that and everything is message controlled. They fear genuine human engagement where they could be put on the spot and shown up as frauds.

8. They've released no revelatory claims in generations. All of the big talk about translating sealed parts of the BOM or how they're Profits, Seers, and Revelators are made explicitly clear to be entirely empty claims by the sheer lack of any of these things happening - why have these people and these roles if they cannot produce anything that meets the role criteria.

9. Many of them are from the corporate world - their leadership is no more remarkable or inspired than the average corporate board level goon. There's simply nothing remarkable that makes them stand out.

10. They lead the LDS church and yet the Jehovahs Witnesses, even the Scientologists and many other faith movements give them a great run for their money in terms of retention and growth, out performing the 'only true church' the one with real profits at the helm who are 'inspired'.

They hide in Utah, because outside of Utah they're either not recognised at all, or they're recognised as frauds and fakes, snake oil salesmen without the spine required to pitch the public themselves.

The big cheese 15 act as if the church has Big Status, and that any fool ought to leap at the chance to join, since among the benefits is ghawdhood, i.e., the second anointing. (Imagine two second anointed greeting each other: Q: "Hey, how'd it going?" A: "Just great! I'm still on track to be ghawd!" Q: "Me, too!!")

Anyway, they, the 15, want to grow the church. They call and set apart a few thousand missionaries a year, like in the area of 40,000. Some missionaries till fertile (3rd world) ground, while some get stuck just bruising their knuckles for two years.

Why don't the 15, many of whom come from business backgrounds, preach to and convert the non-mormon peers they may have once worked with? Why doesn't Dallin Oaks schedule a symposium at University of Chicago Law School and using his apostolic power to preach to and convert all those in attendance, and leave the Chicago mission missionaries to tidy up, with baptisms and confirmations.

Why doesn't Quentin Cook drop in on his former employer, Carr, McClellan, Ingersoll, Thompson & Horn, and convert all the people working there? He could walk in, trailed by a phalanx of missionaries, preach a sermon, wield some of that apostolic power and that would keep the missionaries busy for weeks, following up with the spouses, SOs and kids, etc.

Why can't Bednar go back to the U. of Arkansas, where he worked from 1980 to 1997, and wield him some of that same apostolic power and convert the whole dang school!

Sadly, there are some apostles who have never been 'away from home', so it would be a tougher grind for them to do any converting, not that any of them is going to try.

I think it's one thing for a 19 year old kid who gets shot down by a homeowner, because he can excuse the whole thing as being a product of the homeowner's pride, but it's something else to be Ronald Rasband and have the homeowner tell you he's not interested. The man is an apostle, for ghawd's sake! What's the homeowner thinking!!

Anyway, I think many of us would be delighted to have the opportunity to stand face to face with Holland, with him pretending to be interested in us, as he prepared to unload his message of the restored gospel. But I just don't see that ever happening.

They are 100% real life authoritarian cult leaders. They say jump and millions of followers say how high. They are as real as any other narcissistic bully. They are exactly what they appear (to normal sane people) to be.